MRC CTU Podcasts
The Trial Talk podcast explores how our work at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL is improving health in the UK and worldwide. In this series, we hear from world-leading experts about the studies we carry out. We delve into trials on cancer, infections and neurodegenerative diseases, explore how public and patient involvement shapes our work, and discover new ways to run smarter studies.
Episodes
October 29, 2024 • 25 mins
At the start of October, lots of the Unit’s clinical trials methodology researchers travelled to Edinburgh, for the 7th International Clinical Trials Methodology Conference (ICTMC).
ICTMC is the largest academic-led conference on clinical trials, bringing together trialists from across the globe to present their latest work in trials methodology. This year's conference featured a wide variety of workshops, talks and poster present...
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February 5, 2024 • 26 mins
UKCTOCS (UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening) is one of the largest screening trials in ovarian cancer. More than 200,000 women from England, Wales and Northern Ireland took part in it, and it ran for almost two decades. Designing and running such a large and lengthy trial came with its own challenges. In this episode, Professor Usha Menon discusses the key challenges that UKCTOCS faced in its design, conduct an anal...
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January 26, 2024 • 28 mins
In the first episode of our new Trial Talk series, Hanif Esmail and Conor Tweed take over the microphones to interview Andrew Nunn and Sarah Meredith, who have both recently retired from the Unit, having spent a combined total of 92 years working in the field of tuberculosis (TB).
As we celebrate Andrew and Sarah’s long and accomplished careers, we’ll dive into the history of TB clinical trials and muse on the future of TB resear...
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December 1, 2023 • 19 mins
Every year on 1st December, we mark World AIDS Day to show solidarity in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and to remember those who have sadly lost their lives.
Since the start of the global AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, researchers have made enormous progress towards preventing HIV transmission, and treating those who are living with HIV so that the virus remains suppressed. But while there have been marked improvements for adults...
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December 1, 2023 • 24 mins
Every year on 1st December, we mark World AIDS Day to show solidarity in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and to remember those who have sadly lost their lives.
Since the start of the global AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, researchers have made enormous progress towards preventing HIV transmission, and treating those who are living with HIV so that the virus remains suppressed. But while there have been marked improvements for adults...
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November 9, 2023 • 20 mins
Octopus is a new clinical trial for people living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), which is designed and run by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, Octopus has the potential to transform the way treatments for progressive MS are tested. The trial is now open in the UK and will be recruiting participants for the next few years.
The podcast mini-series will explore the...
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November 2, 2023 • 24 mins
Octopus is a new clinical trial for people living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), which is designed and run by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, Octopus has the potential to transform the way treatments for progressive MS are tested. The trial is now open in the UK and will be recruiting participants for the next few years.
The podcast mini-series will explore the...
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October 26, 2023 • 24 mins
Octopus is a new clinical trial for people living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), which is designed and run by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, Octopus has the potential to transform the way treatments for progressive MS are tested. The trial is now open in the UK and will be recruiting participants for the next few years.
The podcast mini-series will explore the...
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October 19, 2023 • 17 mins
Octopus is a new clinical trial for people living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), which is designed and run by the MRC CTU at UCL. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, Octopus has the potential to transform the way treatments for progressive MS are tested. The trial is now open in the UK and will be recruiting participants for the next few years.
The podcast mini-series will explore the trial from diffe...
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September 21, 2023 • 24 mins
Innovative platform designs present an opportunity to run faster and more efficient clinical trials.
Clinical trials methodology is a research area that looks at how to improve the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. It focuses on developing and implementing new methods to help run trials faster and more efficiently, that will ultimately accelerate the discovery of new treatments.
In this episode, methodologist M...
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August 24, 2023 • 23 mins
STAMPEDE is a long-running trial in advanced prostate cancer, in which nearly 12,000 men have taken part. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, STAMPEDE has tested many different treatments and directly led to improvements in the standard of prostate cancer care several times.
This Trial Talk podcast mini-series will explore the trial’s journey from its inception in the early 2000s to the end of patient recruitment...
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August 17, 2023 • 18 mins
STAMPEDE is a long-running trial in advanced prostate cancer, in which nearly 12,000 men have taken part. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, STAMPEDE has tested many different treatments and directly led to improvements in the standard of prostate cancer care several times.
This Trial Talk podcast mini-series will explore the trial’s journey from its inception in the early 2000s to the end of patient recruitment...
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August 10, 2023 • 18 mins
STAMPEDE is a long-running trial in advanced prostate cancer, in which nearly 12,000 men have taken part. Thanks to its multi-arm multi-stage platform design, STAMPEDE has tested many different treatments and directly led to improvements in the standard of prostate cancer care several times.
This Trial Talk podcast mini-series will explore the trial’s journey from its inception in the early 2000s to the end of patient recruitment...
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July 17, 2023 • 16 mins
Immunotherapy drugs fight cancer by helping the immune system recognise and attack cancer cells. These drugs have revolutionised cancer treatment over the last decade, improving survival for many people with different types of cancer. However, researchers are still unsure of the best way to give immunotherapy, which can come with unpredictable side effects.
In this episode, Clinical Fellow Sophie Merrick discusses how the REFIN...
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June 26, 2023 • 25 mins
Running a clinical trial means collecting a lot of data from the trial participants. But some of this data might be collected and stored in healthcare systems, as well as in clinical trial case report forms.
What if we could avoid this doubling up, save time and resources, improve recruitment and reduce missing data?
In this episode we explore the opportunities and challenges of using healthcare systems data in clinical trials...
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June 9, 2023 • 21 mins
Neonatal sepsis is a life-threatening infection that affects up to 3 million babies per year globally.
In an effort to identify better treatments, the NeoSep1 clinical trial evaluates new antibiotic combinations for newborn babies with sepsis. To learn more about the trial, we speak to Adrie Bekker and Cristina Obiero, principal investigators of the trial in South Africa and Kenya, Reenu Thomas, a neonatologist from South Africa,...
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214,000 newborn babies die of sepsis caused by infections that are resistant to antibiotics every year. This is a major problem worldwide, but disproportionally affects low- and middle- income countries.
Reenu Thomas and Adrie Bekker, two neonatologists from South Africa, and Francesca Schiavone, clinical project manager at the MRC CTU at UCL in London, discuss the challenges of treating neonatal sepsis and present the results fro...
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March 24, 2023 • 19 mins
For World TB Day, this episode explores the global burden of tuberculosis (TB) and how growing antibiotic resistance can complicate treatment options. Andrew Nunn, a Professor of Epidemiology, discusses his work on the STREAM2 trial, which investigated how treatment for multi-drug resistant TB could be shortened and made more acceptable for patients.
Further information is available on the STREAM Stage 2 study page at www.mrcctu.a...
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May 13, 2021 • 17 mins
Around 4000 women die of ovarian cancer in the UK each year. It is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, making treatment difficult. The UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening, known as the UKCTOCS trial, followed up more than 200,000 women over an average of 16 years, in an effort to improve diagnosis of ovarian cancer. This podcast episode explores the long-term results of the trial.
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October 29, 2018 • 35 mins
Andrew Nunn joined the MRC’s Tuberculosis & Chest Diseases Unit as a statistician in 1966. During the next 20 years he was directly involved in the design, conduct and analysis of the programme of trials conducted under the leadership of Professors Wallace Fox and Denny Mitchison in East Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore which led to the worldwide adoption of short course chemotherapy for tuberculosis.
Following the closure of that ...
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